Chamber and committees

In September 2021, the Scottish Government announced £250,000 from the Humanitarian Emergency Fund (HEF) for Afghanistan. However, given the acute need and deteriorating conditions, this was subsequently increased to £360,000. £120,000 was awarded to Tearfund while £240,000 was awarded jointly to Christian Aid and Islamic Relief. These projects have now concluded and a report on their outcomes and results will be made publicly available in due course.

The Scottish Government subsequently awarded a further £240,000 from the HEF to the Disasters Emergency Committee for their Afghanistan appeal launched on 15 December, bringing our total commitment to Afghanistan to £600,000.

Women and Girls face the largest barriers to accessing secondary and undergraduate education in Pakistan. Since the scholarships were first launched in 2013, over 1,400 young women have been supported to study at University through the Scotland Pakistan Scholarship Scheme. In addition, over 13,000 children have been supported to go to school. The Scottish Government is proud to fund the scholarships.

The amounts the Scottish Government has spent on Women’s Scholarship in Pakistan each year since 2017 are as follows: £175,000 in 2017-2018; £175,000 in 2018-2019; £200,000 in 2019-2020; £200,000 in 2020-2021; and £200,000 in 2021-2022.

The amounts the Scottish Government has spent on Children’s Scholarship in Pakistan each year since 2017 are as follows: £150,000 in 2017-2018; £150,000 in 2018-2019; £200,000 in 2019-2020; £200,000 in 2020-2021; and £200,000 in 2021-2022.

A Culture Strategy for Scotland highlights the Scottish Government commitment to ensuring everyone has an equal opportunity to experience culture’s empowering and transformative potential. We want to ensure that everyone in Scotland can take part in culture throughout their lives and that culture in, and from, Scotland enriches the lives of people and communities across the country.

The innovative Creative Communities programme, Creative Communities - Inspiring Scotland , was launched following the publication of the Culture Strategy in 2020 which supports and empowers individuals and communities to further develop their own cultural activity.

The Culture Strategy sets out that those who engage in cultural activity as children are more likely to participate and attend when they are adults, regardless of parental background, wealth or poverty. Our long-standing Youth Music Initiative offers a year’s free music tuition to all children before they leave primary school, as well as targeted opportunities for out of school participation in music for children and young people who may not otherwise have these opportunities. Additionally, our Youth Arts Emergency Fund offered similar targeted opportunities across a range of art forms.

Scottish Government Officials met with the Blood Cancer Alliance on 18 January. The Blood Cancer Alliance agreed to provide officials with details on how data collection on blood cancers would be useful for patients and to support the review and redesign of the Detect Cancer Early public facing website getcheckedearly.org. Officials agreed to collaborate with them to ensure experiences of those living with blood cancers are reflected in national cancer improvement programmes and they will be included in stakeholder engagement for developing any new national cancer strategy.

The support shown by the people of Scotland to those fleeing the illegal war in Ukraine has been heart-warming and we appreciate those who have registered their interest in welcoming displaced people under the UK’s Homes for Ukraine scheme.

All 32 of our local authorities are taking part in this programme, and hosts have offered up their homes under the Super Sponsor scheme in each area. We have contacted people who registered their interest, and continue to contact new prospective hosts, to find out if they want to make their offer of accommodation available to people with a Scottish super sponsor visa.

In line with guidance from the Office for Statistics Regulation we are obliged to ensure that data are of sufficient quality for publication and we are currently quality assuring this data before publication.

Please find the requested information in the following tables.

Table 1: NHS Board Baseline funding for Alcohol and Drug Services ; Ayrshire and Arran.

The Scottish Government is committed to developing a national strategy for palliative and end of life care in partnership with key stakeholders including Marie Curie. It is envisioned that this will be a whole system, public health approach to help ensure that everyone who needs care or assistance can access it.

In the meantime, we are taking a number of actions within the social security powers devolved to the Scottish Government to ensure that people throughout Scotland can access financial support at this difficult time. These include:

Fast tracking disability assistance applications and removing fixed periods of life expectancy from our terminal illness definition, so that individuals are supported more quickly and for longer.

• Prioritising the rollout of Scottish Child Payment to children aged 6 to 15 to support low income families. This currently provides £20 a week per child, but will be increased to £25 when we rollout to older children.
• Guaranteeing an annual £50 payment to around 400,000 low income households each winter through our new non age dependent Low Income Winter Heating Assistance.
• Committing to increasing the amount of time Scottish Carer’s Assistance is paid after the death of a cared person, from 8 to 12 weeks following it’s transfer from DWP.

Following an open tender process in January, we have contracted a consortium of expert researchers to help inform our thinking on Scotland’s future peace offer. This will enable us to consider next steps in establishing the Peace Institute. The researchers will report back to us in the Summer.

Local authorities across Scotland have a range of approaches to the provision of technology in schools, including some councils who have undertaken to provide cohorts of their school population with devices using their own budgets.

The latest information we have from councils indicates that almost 280,000 devices have been, or are in the process of being, rolled out to learners across Scotland. This includes the 72,000 provided as a result of Scottish Government funding. We do not have additional information regarding device rollout in either South Ayrshire or East Ayrshire beyond that included in the answer to S6W-06933.

The Super Sponsor scheme is designed to provide a quick and safe route for displaced people from Ukraine to come to a place of sanctuary by removing the need for applicants to be matched to an individual sponsor prior to being given permission to travel to the UK.

Once people have arrived, a national matching service, delivered by COSLA, will match those settling here with longer-term accommodation across Scotland.

Displaced people from Ukraine are asked to complete a short questionnaire that captures key information and preferences. This information is then used to find suitable longer-term accommodation, which will be offered as a choice.

All 32 of our local authorities are taking part in this programme, and hosts have offered up their homes right across the country. The national matching service will ensure that people are offered settlement opportunities across Scotland, recognising that people will have different preferences and available housing is limited in some local authorities.